


Nageki: A Silent Study

by marrowbone



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Fluff, M/M, POV Second Person, Pining, but it's ryouta it's not readerfic, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 22:28:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13374372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marrowbone/pseuds/marrowbone
Summary: Nageki’s reading a book and you’ve got your laptop. That’s all. But a few of his feathers, soft lavender brown, are almost brushing your slate blue ones, and you think about the two colors and how nice they’d look together as Nageki slowly flips a page.





	Nageki: A Silent Study

**Author's Note:**

> I know second-person is a bit out of style with the current self insert boom, but I wrote this back in like 2013. After posting Cicada Kiss I noticed how barren the livershipping tag was so uh, here's this old thing too. I never named it when I wrote it so excuse my sorry attempt. And [here's my boyfriend's livershipping tag](http://sunquail.tumblr.com/tagged/livershipping). I know how rare a pair this is and I feel for you my friends.
> 
> Second person, mixed ICPSS and bird form, don't think about it too hard. I used to roleplay in mixed style all the time and it's fun.

You’ve known him for years. Trials bring people close, according to superstition. Maybe. Hanging around Nageki for so long, you’d grown used to him. His minuscule glances, minute facial expressions, quiet hesitations or shifts in tone. Over time, he’d become infinitely more readable to you than most. Not quite as readable as the pages of a book, but…

That. There, for instance. You lean your head on your wing and your elbow on the table and you make no excuse about watching him. You’re in a city library, this time, but a library all the same. A chattering group of birds has just walked in, and that – thumb moves a half inch down the page, soft exhale, lips press, sunset-on-pine-sap-orange eyes blink and refocus under pale milky-green eyelashes – that means he’s irritated. Your mind takes this in in half a second that pulls fondly on something inside you, and you know what it means before you’ve blinked again. It’s an intuitive art, though not an unpleasant one, and it’s taken you a little while to learn, but you’ve got it close to perfect now. A half beat late, you nudge him, and he looks up; his hair falls a little, in the back of your mind you register that the visual was pleasing. “Come on,” you murmur, smile apologetic on behalf of the rest of the world. “There’s a study room.”

The two of you re-settle on the sunken couch in the private room, and you try not to think about how close to him you are, because you’ve been this close and it means nothing. It’s a seating arrangement. Nageki’s reading a book and you’ve got your laptop. That’s all. But a few of his feathers, soft lavender brown, are almost brushing your slate blue ones, and you think about the two colors and how nice they’d look together as Nageki slowly flips a page. You know he likes the sound of pages turning. You like it, too. It’s soft and nice. Warm, like the hands that turn them. Bony and spidery, worn and too large – particularly for Nageki. They seem to have too many joints in them, folding around the book like they are. Your mother used to call them pianist’s hands. They would look nice playing down a keyboard, you think, but they’re good where they are. Around a book, gently pressing the corner of the pages into the tip of a thumb as their owner reads.

Nageki makes no expression while he’s reading. Even his usual understated looks drop away, and you can watch him fall out of his own mind and drift into the story. You’re sure he’s a million miles off, wandering the stars somewhere. You chuckle to yourself about how fitting your metaphor is, and he takes a moment to hear you. “What is it, Kawara?” he asks, his eyes lingering on the page a second longer than his head allows. You shake your head, a smile still on it.

“Nothing, sorry.” There’s no doubt about it. Nageki is beautiful. You think this very slowly, terrified of saying it aloud by mistake. Nageki is beautiful. For a few minutes, you decide, you’ll allow yourself to be honest inside the walls of your mind. What’s the use in denying it, anyway? His hair frames his face in the perfect way, and it’s lovely, thin, and fine, and you want to touch it. Feel it between your thumb and finger. You want to know if he really does smell the way you think he does, the way you catch now and then when he’s near you like this. It must be shampoo, because Nageki wouldn’t use much else, and it smells sweet and clean, like rock melon. If it’s true, you want to inhale it deeply, know it better, like you know his personality. Quiet and simple, but with so much beneath, like an underwater cavern brimming with perfect, sparkling complexity.

You stop, double checking you did not say that out loud, or even think it too loudly. The light fixtures in the room hum. Nageki slowly turns a page. Your thoughts are deafening, and you can’t stop them, and you’re not sure if Nageki would be able to hear them if he was listening. Thankfully, he isn’t. A part of you wants him to look at you with his brilliant amber-honey-citrine eyes, set in his handsome face with his high cheekbones and his jaw, endlessly interesting thin-but-strong. But you’d rather not interrupt him, you think. He should be doing what he loves, and you’re happy to see just that. He’s perfect as he is, and you adore him.

…You—You try to unthink that. But it isn’t going anywhere.

Damn it.


End file.
